The extensive use of fungicides are polluting the environment and giving rise to undesirable biological effects on animal and human beings. Therefore use of plant extracts as biological control agents is being popularized in recent years. Alternaria alternata is reported for causing foliage disease in several important vegetables and crops. In an approach towards the development of eco friendly antifungal compound for controlling plant diseases caused by Alternaria alternata different extracts

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... f Parthenium hysterophorus were tested for their antifungal potential. Parthenium hysterophorus is considered as an obnoxious weed, growing on waste land. The four different solvent extracts viz., aqueous, methanol, acetone and ethanol extracts of leaves of Parthenium hysterophorus was evaluated from antifungal potential against four different isolates of Alternaria alternata isolated from potato (Solanum tuberosum), onion (Allium cepa), tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) and mustard (Brassica compestris) by food poison technique. The ethanolic extract showed complete inhibition against the four isolates i.e. 100 % followed by acetone and methanol extracts which was approximately 96 % and 76 % respectively, while aqueous extract do not showed any antifungal activity. Thus the result showed that the ethanolic extract was the best extract to be used. The phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of alkaloid, glycoside, steroid, saponin in varying concentration in different extracts which might be the cause of antifungal potential. The present study supports the use of leaf extract of Parthenium hysterophorus as biofungicides for the disease caused by Alternaria alternata. This will help to save the environment from chemical hazards as most of the synthetic fungicide constitute mercury, zinc etc which are toxic for nature.